GT 240 Woes

Posted 21 July 2010 - 04:00 PM

Plucka

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

162 posts

Hey all sorry if my topic isnt very different from all the others here, but I am having a very tough time getting my Palit Geforce GT 240 512mb card recognized in about this mac, I have read a lot of posts here and havent been able to find the right answers. Is there anybody that would be able to share their experiences with this or a similar card? I have it sort of working now, but, I cant tell if its installed properly? I have the cuda drivers installed in preference pane and have tried efi studio using the 9800 GT 1024mb string in the drop down table. Also have tried NVenabler 64 by placing it in my extras folder, after all this I still cannot get the card to be correctly recognized?

Is there anybody that is willing to help with this, I am sure a lot of people are in the same boat as I am.

Posted 21 July 2010 - 05:40 PM

WallyFTW

InsanelyMac Protégé

Members

56 posts

Gender:Male

Location:San Jose, CA

I have to say the best way to install a graphics card is through EFI strings. Now here you mention you tried the 9800's EFI string and it didn't work properly. I personally do not have a GT240 but I used this method with my GeForce 210 on 10.6.2 and Its fully accelerated.

First off you're going to need a Window's computer & a USB drive. Windows doesn't have to be the computer that OS X is installed on though.

2) Go to the HP Tool and select your USB drive from the "Devices" drop-down menu. Set the "File System" to FAT. Check the boxes which say "Quick Format" & "Create a DOS Startup Drive".

3) Download & extract this file to your desktop. Under "Create a DOS Startup Drive" you will see the bullet that says "using DOS system files located at" and then browse to the folder you just extracted onto your desktop. Click Start.

4) Download and extract the NVFlash.zip to your desktop. Copy over the nvflash.exe to the root of the USB drive. Restart and boot from the USB.

5) Upon restart, you will be prompted the DOS environment. Type:

nvflash.exe --save GT240.ROM
exit

6) The GT240.ROM will be saved onto the root of the USB drive. Boot into OS X.

7) Download this app and run it. Load the GT240.ROM file you just created. Click Ok and you will be rewarded with the NVCAP value of your card.

8) Download and run OSx86 Tools and click "EFI Strings" at the bottom. At the top of the new window click "GFX Strings". From the drop-down list go all the way down to "Custom GeForce...". You will be prompted to type in your card's name & hit next. Then It will ask for the amount of RAM, click 512MB, then it will ask you for the input type (such VGA-DVI or DVI-VGA), that when you click "Custom..." and enter in your NVCAP from the NVCAP Maker app. Finally you will have an EFI string. Click the button which adds it to your com.apple.boot.plist.

9) Cross your finger and reboot. If all goes well, the system should change resolution at the end of the boot process, before your desktop appears.

You can also add the EFI string to the com.apple.boot.plist in the /Extra folder by copying it to your desktop, opening it in the text edit and using these keys/strings.

Posted 21 July 2010 - 07:07 PM

Plucka

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

162 posts

I have to say the best way to install a graphics card is through EFI strings. Now here you mention you tried the 9800's EFI string and it didn't work properly. I personally do not have a GT240 but I used this method with my GeForce 210 on 10.6.2 and Its fully accelerated.

First off you're going to need a Window's computer & a USB drive. Windows doesn't have to be the computer that OS X is installed on though.

2) Go to the HP Tool and select your USB drive from the "Devices" drop-down menu. Set the "File System" to FAT. Check the boxes which say "Quick Format" & "Create a DOS Startup Drive".

3) Download & extract this file to your desktop. Under "Create a DOS Startup Drive" you will see the bullet that says "using DOS system files located at" and then browse to the folder you just extracted onto your desktop. Click Start.

4) Download and extract the NVFlash.zip to your desktop. Copy over the nvflash.exe to the root of the USB drive. Restart and boot from the USB.

5) Upon restart, you will be prompted the DOS environment. Type:

nvflash.exe --save GT240.ROM
exit

6) The GT240.ROM will be saved onto the root of the USB drive. Boot into OS X.

7) Download this app and run it. Load the GT240.ROM file you just created. Click Ok and you will be rewarded with the NVCAP value of your card.

8) Download and run OSx86 Tools and click "EFI Strings" at the bottom. At the top of the new window click "GFX Strings". From the drop-down list go all the way down to "Custom GeForce...". You will be prompted to type in your card's name & hit next. Then It will ask for the amount of RAM, click 512MB, then it will ask you for the input type (such VGA-DVI or DVI-VGA), that when you click "Custom..." and enter in your NVCAP from the NVCAP Maker app. Finally you will have an EFI string. Click the button which adds it to your com.apple.boot.plist.

9) Cross your finger and reboot. If all goes well, the system should change resolution at the end of the boot process, before your desktop appears.

You can also add the EFI string to the com.apple.boot.plist in the /Extra folder by copying it to your desktop, opening it in the text edit and using these keys/strings.

Thank you ever so much for your comprehensive answer, I will try this on my test install. I appreciate your help and advice very much. Question, do I need to remove anything like the cuda drivers or adjust any plists before attempting this?

Thank you once again and I will let you know ASAP how I get on, cheers mate, Plucka

Posted 22 July 2010 - 08:42 PM

Posted 23 July 2010 - 01:26 PM

Plucka

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

162 posts

Hey WallyFTW,

Succes, thank you very very much for your help and patience your new link worked a treat, and here are the pics to show it.

It all worked properly and my only mistake was thinking I had a 512 mb card, as it showed up in windows as a 1024 mb card. So I installed it in windows using the official nVidia drivers for this card and in adapter info it showed 1024 mb.

Anyway I hope this helps some other people as well, if anyone has this card and needs the efi string info give WallyFTW's method a go.

Once again thank you ever so much and have a great day, afternoon, night, cheers mate, Plucka

Posted 20 August 2010 - 12:36 AM

Posted 20 August 2010 - 06:33 AM

Plucka

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

162 posts

i will give it a try now , thx m8 ,i have been trying for sso long with no luck , hope it works,thanks

Good luck then, it might be handy to post your specs as well, some other people may see this thread and have more help for you. Just try and follow the steps above as it does work. Otherwise let me know maybe we can figure something else out.

Cheers mate, Plucka

PS here is my NVCAP value, my own EFI string and a Hex. file cross fingers maybe they will work for you :-)

Posted 28 August 2010 - 08:03 PM

Might it have something to do with the fact that the HP USB formatting tool formatted the flash drive in FAT32? It didn't have plain FAT...

Hi there, you do have to format the drive as plain fat and put both files on it in order for it to run the DOS program.If you are running Vista or Windows 7 you may not have the option to format in Fat. I formatted mine in XP.

Attached Files

Posted 29 August 2010 - 07:05 PM

p.c.27618349

InsanelyMac Protégé

Members

30 posts

yup, the addition of those two files works a charm.

new question: once i have the EFI string, how do i put it in com.apple.Boot.plist? i copied a boot.plist from /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ to /Extra with the new EFI string editted in but there was no change upon reboot. In System Profiler, the graphics is still listed as "GPU". I then changed the one in /L/P/SC/ to no avail.

One can't use OSx86Tools since development for that stopped at the Leopard level. If you try to click "Add EFI String" in SL it results in an error involving assigning a 0 value to a boolean.

Posted 29 August 2010 - 07:12 PM

Plucka

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

162 posts

yup, the addition of those two files works a charm.

new question: once i have the EFI string, how do i put it in com.apple.Boot.plist? i copied a boot.plist from /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ to /Extra with the new EFI string editted in but it did no change. In System Profiler, the graphics is still listed as "GPU". I then changed the one in /L/P/SC/ to no avail.

Hey there, check the first couple of posts on this thread, there is a step by step guide on how to apply your efi string. If all went well you should have installed OSX 86 tools and used that to create and insert your efi string.

Attached Files

Posted 30 August 2010 - 09:16 PM

The version of osx 86 tools that I used is working in SL, that is the the one downloaded from the link above. see pic for proof.

Give that one a go it does work, cheers, Plucka

I did give it a go. Only the "Add EFI String" gives that assigning a zero to a boolean error that was mentioned above, b/c OSx86Tools was orphaned and the final version wasn't built for Snow Leopard. It's great that it works with yours, but it doesn't with mine. That's why I was asking how to edit the com.apple.Boot.plist file manually.